Allston Development Director Departs—Updated

Keywords

Christopher M. Gordon, who joined the University in 2005 to direct
accelerated development of the University’s planned campus growth in Allston,
has decided to relinquish his position. President Drew Faust announced in an e-mail today
that Gordon, who is formally chief operating officer of the Allston Development
Group (ADG), would be “stepping down from his position this summer.” Gordon’s
departure suggests that Harvard development throughout Allston—already in a
suspended state—is receding further into the future. He has focused professionally on the management of large, long-term planned projects (a broader role than overseeing construction projects per se)—the subject of his graduate work and teaching at MIT. In light of current circumstances, Gordon said in a statement, “The work I came here to do will be happening at a slower pace and intensity as announced by President Faust last December and that reality led to today’s announcement.”

Construction of the first Allston project, a large
scientific laboratory complex, has been halted, in line with the University’s
announcement last winter. At the time, no date for resuming the work was projected,
and Harvard raised the possibility of “co-development.” In light of the
financial constraints imposed by the sharp decline in the value of the
University’s endowment in late 2008 and early 2009, and the projected
$1.4-billion cost of the science complex, it became clear that borrowing the
sums required to proceed was not prudent. The scientists whose laboratories
were to be sited in the new facility have been redirected to existing and
renovated spaces in Cambridge and the Longwood Medical Area, making it possible
that the partially built Allston complex will undergo changes of both design
and ownership before it is finished. More broadly, the University has
been seeking proposals for alternative uses, development options, and ownership
structures for its Allston landholdings as a whole. But Harvard is not the only competitor in the market; Cambridge just approved a 1.7-million-square-foot biotechnology and research development in Kendall Square, which will be located closer to existing industry facilities and with faster access to the Massachusetts General Hospital complex than anything that might rise at the unfinished Allston science site.